Someday maybe I'll learn to estimate · 6:36am Mar 3rd, 2015
The third chapter of Last Draconequus is done and up, clocking in at almost 17000 words. I had expected 10000. Someday I will figure out how to accurately pre-estimate my word count...
I am not satisfied with this, but the way out is through. I'm working with a time period when Discord has no actual friends to talk to, aside from his stuffed animal, so there's a lot of just narration and that's not really my strong point, especially not with a character like Discord. I also keep getting caught up on the question of how much a kid who was a nomad before he lost his mom and has been living feral afterward would really know about the way the world works. His ability to sense how reality is constructed and make changes to it helps him, in that he knows what things are and what they can do just by looking at them, but would he really know that unicorns move the sun at this point in time?
BTW, this entire story ignores Journal of the Two Sisters so hard, Journal of the Two Sisters felt dissed and ran home crying to post about it on Tumblr. Just so you know.
Anyway, it's done, and I need to move forward. This was probably the hardest chapter to do, so hopefully the rest will come more quickly. I have at least 17 chapters to this thing, so 1 every year just won't work. :-)
Really, in my opinion, the only proper way to interact with that Journal is to glare at it until it throws itself into one of the plot holes it created.
2845777
I think the Journal is canon considering Amy Keating Rogers wrote it and and both she and Meghan still direct people at cons to read it if they ask about the past of the princesses
2846035
I follow Star Trek rules. What's on a show is canon. What's in comics or books is semi-canon, meaning you can use it if you want to, or leave it.
I find the story of the princesses' history in "Journal" to be entirely too much like a zillion fanfics I've read. It's boring and jejune. It's also written for 8 year olds. So is the whole series, but the whole series has adult voice actors who can make lame dialogue sound interesting.
I also find the obsessive concern about what's "canon" to be ridiculous when talking about fanfic, where the wonderful thing about it is that it's not canon and therefore has a much wider range of story possibilities.
About Journal. It felt like a rather odd piece, even from someone as eccentric as AKR. Like she was trying to somehow reconcile Faust's vision, make something for the small kiddies, and still make it tie in somehow with how the show is now. That could be why it feels off and why the plot holes. I can respect people not taking it into canon, it's understandable from a creative perspective I think.
As to Last Draconequus. I think this fic basically tackles uncharted territory with the whole kid Discord and workings of the world for him. I haven't come across a story that really delves into this, and it's a take I personally like to envision as part of his origin. Despite you feeling the latest chapter may be long, I found it an interesting read. Looking forward to what you have in store, and happy to see this possibly being a decently lengthy tale.
2846111
I still don't really want to cherrypick on what is canon or not. Discord as a character is canon and we can't just write him as a responsible, mature and lawful avatar of justice. Even in fan fiction we shoud keep to established facts to really know him and have an idea on how to write him. Even if they going to establish that he was married to Princess Amore or was Starswirl entire time. We can't just reshape facts about his past to make new Discord. We should just create a new character, then. At this point, of course we could just argue that only Faust decide on what is canon and you can basically reject anything after Return of Harmony but i think that we should take for canon on everything that is agreed upon by both Hasrbo and his employees, with DHX being the most important and with books and comic books beings canon as long as DHX doesn't disprove it.